Chapter 121: Truce???
The air inside the townhouse foyer was thick enough to choke a lesser hunter to death.
Zen stood perfectly still, his muscles screaming in agony as the D-Rank suppression ring choked off his internal mana reserves.
The freezing ash from the Grave of the Forgotten was still clinging to his tactical jacket, but the cold was nothing compared to the suffocating heat of the four S-Rank auras currently suffocating the room.
"I said," Valeria began, her voice dropping a full octave as she casually rested her massive black-steel broadsword against the marble floor, "you left your left flank exposed for a quarter of a second. That is unacceptable. We are sparring. Now."
Her crimson eyes were completely dilated. The Vanguard Goddess was practically vibrating with predatory adrenaline.
"He is not fighting you, you meathead," Aurelia snapped, stepping in front of Valeria.
The Golden Empress’s amber eyes flashed with volatile magic. "I bought his time tonight. Eight million credits. The Ghost Scrapper belongs to the Crown Domain for the remainder of the evening. Zen, my personal chef has prepared a twelve-course meal. You will eat with me."
"Both of your propositions are inefficient," Lyra muttered, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. The Goddess of Aether didn’t even look up from her stack of equations. "His kinetic output is completely drained. Sparring will result in muscular tearing, and a heavy meal will divert blood flow from his localised recovery. I need him in the study. I need to dissect the spatial paradox he created during his third evasion."
"You are all completely blind to what he actually needs," Selene whispered as she reached out with trembling hands and gently took Zen’s hands in hers.
"My Emperor," Selene breathed, her silver eyes brimming with tears of euphoric devotion. "You are exhausted. You are in pain. Please... let me take it away. Let me cleanse you. Let me heal you until you can’t feel anything but me."
Zen closed his eyes. A massive headache throbbed behind his temples.
He had faced down Void Leviathans that could swallow entire continents, but dealing with the coordinated obsession of the four most powerful women in the world was pushing his mental limits to the breaking point.
He could feel the subtle shift in the dynamic.
Valeria and Lyra had spent time with him... Valeria through physical combat, Nyx through intellectual analysis and Lyra... well, they’ve had a ’tactical session’ alone in the tent.
Aurelia and Selene knew they were lagging behind in terms of intimacy, and their sudden, aggressive push to claim him was setting the room on edge.
Before Zen could formulate a response that wouldn’t result in the townhouse exploding, the soft creak of a floorboard echoed from the second-floor landing.
Everyone froze.
Zen looked up to see Maya standing at the top of the stairs, clutching the wooden railing.
She was wearing a simple, oversized sweater and pajama pants, her green eyes wide with terror as she looked down at the gathering in the foyer. She had clearly just woken up, likely drawn out of her room by the terrifying spikes in ambient mana.
"Z-Zen?" Maya stammered, her voice barely a squeak. "Are you... are you okay? I saw the stream... I thought you were hurt..."
The temperature in the foyer instantly plummeted to absolute zero.
Valeria stopped breathing. Aurelia’s golden mana sparked violently, scorching a small hole in the expensive imported rug. Lyra’s equations shattered into digital dust. Selene slowly turned her head, her beautiful silver eyes narrowing into terrifying, pitch-black slits.
Four S-Rank predators locked their gazes onto a single, D-Rank prey.
"What is she doing out of her room?" Aurelia asked in a dangerously calm voice dripping with authority.
"I... I just wanted to check..." Maya started, instinctively taking a step back as the sheer weight of their combined auras threatened to crush her lungs.
"Silence, parasite," Selene hissed, her holy aura twisting into something suffocating and dark. "You are a drain on his vitality. You don’t check on him. I check on him. I heal him."
"If you take one more step down those stairs," Valeria added softly, her grip tightening on her broadsword, "I will ensure you never walk again."
Maya whimpered, completely paralyzed by fear.
"Enough."
Zen’s voice wasn’t loud, but it cut through the room like a physical blade. He deliberately let a microscopic fraction of his true Emperor aura leak past the suppression ring. Just a drop. Just enough to remind them exactly who he was.
The oppressive atmosphere in the foyer shattered instantly. The Goddesses gasped, instinctively recoiling as their auras were violently suppressed by the sheer, overwhelming weight of his authority.
"I will throw all four of you out onto the street before I let you lay a finger on her," Zen stated, his eyes flashing with a cold, indigo light as he stared down the four women. "She lives here. If you want to impress me, you start by treating her with the exact same respect you treat me. If you threaten her again, you are threatening me. Is that understood?"
Valeria swallowed hard, her cheeks flushing slightly. Lyra looked away, adjusting her glasses nervously. Aurelia crossed her arms, pouting like a petulant child, while Selene bowed her head in submission, though her hands were clenched into tight fists.
"Yes, Emperor," they murmured in unison, though the hostility in their eyes hadn’t faded; it had merely been buried.
"Good," Zen said, exhaling slowly. He looked up at Maya. "Go back to sleep, Maya. I’m fine. We have the academy field assignment tomorrow. You need your rest."
Maya nodded frantically and practically sprinted back to her room, slamming the door shut.
Zen rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Suddenly, a slow, mocking applause echoed from the shadows of the second-floor hallway.
Nyx leaned over the railing, her oversized black hoodie swallowing her small frame. She popped a cherry lollipop out of her mouth, her purple eyes gleaming with chaotic amusement.
"Bravo, Emperor," Nyx laughed, spinning a stolen high-end data drive on her finger. "You saved the damsel. But if you think you can just order them to behave while living under the same roof, you are mathematically insane. Look at them."
Zen looked.
Valeria was glaring at Selene. Aurelia was glaring at Lyra. They were like four feral tigers locked in a cage with a single piece of meat.
"We need a schedule," Nyx declared, hopping over the railing and landing softly on the marble floor. "A truce. If you four lunatics keep trying to monopolise him at the same time, you are going to accidentally level the entire residential district. And I like the Wi-Fi here."
"I don’t need a schedule," Aurelia scoffed. "I bought him. I have the receipts."
"And I can shatter your skull in 0.4 seconds," Valeria retorted, cracking her knuckles.
"Ladies," Nyx interrupted, raising her hands. "House meeting. Dining room. Five minutes. We set the boundaries now, or I swear to the Void, I will leak all of your private browsing histories to the public."
That threat actually worked. The Goddesses paled slightly and reluctantly marched toward the dining room.
Zen didn’t follow them.
The exhaustion radiating from his suppressed core was making his vision blur. "I am taking a shower," he muttered, walking toward the stairs. "Try not to destroy the house."
The atmosphere turned toxic the moment the heavy oak doors of the dining room swung shut. At a mahogany table built for twenty, the four Goddesses sat at the far corners to maximise their distance.
Meanwhile, Nyx floated cross-legged at the head of the table, projecting a glowing holographic whiteboard from her tablet.
"Alright, listen up," Nyx said, tapping a stylus against the glass. "This townhouse is exactly four thousand square feet. The structural integrity is rated for C-Rank impacts. If any of you unleash an S-Rank aura, the wards will hold for exactly three seconds before the entire building collapses on top of Zen."
Valeria crossed her arms, her red eyes narrowed. "I can control my output."
"You literally blew up a nightstand half an hour ago because he did a backflip on a stream," Nyx deadpanned.
Valeria looked away, her cheeks dusting with a faint pink.
"The point is," Nyx continued, drawing a massive circle on the board and dividing it into four equal slices, "we cannot have a free-for-all. Zen is currently operating under D-Rank physiological constraints. If you all swarm him at once, you aren’t going to seduce him. You are going to kill him from pure mana suffocation."
"I would never hurt him," Selene whispered, clutching her rosary. "My magic only gives life."
"Your magic is suffocating, Selene," Aurelia sneered, resting her chin on her hand. "He doesn’t want to be coddled like a patient. He wants to be treated like an Emperor. Which is why I should be allocated sixty per cent of his non-academic hours. The Crown Domain has the resources to properly maintain his lifestyle."
Lyra pushed her glasses up, her fingers flying across a glowing Aether keyboard projected onto the table.
"Your math is atrocious, Aurelia," Lyra stated coldly. "Sixty per cent of his non-academic hours equates to roughly eight hours a day. Factor in the three hours Valeria will undoubtedly demand for physical combat conditioning and the two hours Selene requires for cellular repair, and you leave Zen with exactly 2.4 hours of sleep per night. He will suffer critical organ failure within a week."
"Then we cut the combat conditioning!" Aurelia snapped. "He fought fifty Void-Knights today! He doesn’t need to spar with a meathead!"
"Call me a meathead one more time, and I will drive my sword through this table," Valeria snarled, half-standing from her chair.
"Try it," Aurelia challenged, her golden mana sparking dangerously.
"Ladies!" Nyx shouted, slamming her hand on the table. A pulse of shadow magic rippled through the wood, instantly neutralising their rising auras. "This is exactly what I am talking about! If you fight, he leaves! Did you not just see him defend the commoner girl? If you keep making this house a warzone, he is going to take her and leave!"
That single sentence hit the Goddesses like a physical blow.
The anger vanished, instantly replaced by a cold, unified terror. The thought of Zen leaving them... of Zen taking Maya away and abandoning the townhouse... was completely unacceptable.
"Fine," Valeria gritted out, sitting back down heavily. "What is the proposal, Nyx?"
Nyx smirked, tapping the board. The four slices lit up with different colours.
"A five-way rotation," Nyx declared, leaning back with a smirk. "We each get exactly one weekday. Valeria gets Monday, Lyra gets Tuesday, Aurelia takes Wednesday, Selene gets Thursday, and Friday belongs to me."
Selene’s eyes widened, a euphoric blush spreading across her cheeks. "An entire, uninterrupted day of healing every single week?"
"Saturday and Sunday are free days," Nyx added. "Whoever behaves best and earns his favour gets the weekend. But during your scheduled weekday, you stick to your lanes. No interfering. No sabotaging. And absolutely no threatening the commoner girl, because the Emperor clearly uses her as a metric for your behaviour."
Aurelia stared at the board with a tight jaw. She hated sharing. She hated the idea of Zen spending an entire day with Lyra or Valeria. But Nyx was right. The alternative was losing him completely.
"I accept these terms," Lyra said quietly, analysing the schedule. "The variables are perfectly balanced to ensure maximum efficiency without triggering a flight response."
"Fine," Valeria grunted. "But if he asks to spar on a Wednesday, I am not saying no."
Selene nodded frantically, her hands clasped together in prayer. "I accept! I will be a good Saintess. I will abide by the schedule!"
All eyes turned to the Golden Empress.
Aurelia took a slow, deep breath, her amber eyes practically glowing in the dim light of the dining room. She looked at the other three women, her territorial instincts violently clashing with her strategic mind.
"Very well," Aurelia whispered, her voice dripping with venom. "I accept."
Nyx clapped her hands together, a wicked grin spreading across her face. "Excellent. So we have an agreement?"
"Truce," Valeria said.
"Truce," Lyra echoed.
"Truce," Selene whispered.
Aurelia just narrowed her eyes. "Truce.